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Monday, August 28, 2017

South Texas Nuke Plant (STP) is just a small part of electricity production in Texas.

Natural Gas Fired plants are 10 times larger, around 25800 MegaWatts. STP is just 2500 MW.

Gas and coal plants are shutting down for safety. But the dying nuclear industry refuses to give up even a day of profits, as Biblical storms pound Texas.

The "Design Basis Flood" of which engineering is done to protect from is 40.0 Mean Sea Level. See second screen cap down. Bay City is the nearest River Gauge Station. They are predicting over 50 ' Mean Sea Level. But no plans to shut down this nuclear plant.

The Colorado River (of Texas) Basin is huge. In the NRC Flood Risk Control documents they try to minimize the area of the Basin to make things "look better", They cut the basin size by almost half. My calcs show below show 13,389 Trillion gallons of water to hit that basin, using the proper area.

http://www.energycentral.com/news/stp-nuclear-operating-company-south-texas-project-units-1-and-2The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is granting exemptions from
certain portions of the acceptance criteria for emergency core cooling,
and the general design criteria for emergency core cooling, containment
heat removal, and atmosphere cleanup for the use of a risk-informed
analysis to evaluate the effects of debris in containment following a
loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) for the South Texas Project (STP), Units
1 and 2, located in Matagorda County, Texas, Docket Nos. 50-498 and
50-499, respectively. The exemptions are in response to a request dated
June 19, 2013, from the STP Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC, the
licensee) related to STPNOC's proposed approach to resolve a generic
safety concern for pressurized water reactors (PWRs) associated with
potential clogging of emergency core cooling and containment spray
system strainers during certain design basis events.
DATES: The exemption was issued on July 11, 2017.

Here's how to make it look good on paper…You all know if I took the time to look these "scientists" up, what would turn up…https://experts.illinois.edu/en/publications/risk-informed-resolution-of-generic-safety-issue-191
This paper summarizes the elements of the integrative framework
including PRA and the CASA Grande program, as well as the input
parameters, assumptions, methodology, and results of the STPNOC
analysis. The results show that the risk of core damage or large early
release related to the concerns raised in GSI-191 in the as-built,
as-operated design for STPNOC is very small (as defined in Regulatory
Guide 1.174).

"safety concern for pressurized water reactors (PWRs) associated
with potential clogging of emergency core cooling and containment spray
system strainers during certain design basis events.
DATES: The exemption was issued on July 11, 2017."
Now let's all imagine the level of leaves, limbs, yard items, cans,
plastic wrappers, building materials, car parts and other simple trash
that is washing downstream NOW!!! (after the largest flood in recorded
history).
All this "stuff" (floating and submerged) is being carried down this
river from points as far north as Austin and beyond… And it's all in
that water that is inundating that nuclear plant, it's cooling supply
pipes and many other systems…
This ain't no dress rehearsal folks…
SHUT DOWN THE STP NUCLEAR PLANT NOW!!!!!

Oh, "potential clogging of emergency core cooling and containment
spray system strainers during certain design basis events". Would a
'certain design basis event(s)' be a FLOOD? Seems clogging and floods do
seem to go together(there is a lot of junk in the water then to clog up
filters!). And define 'very small'..wait we have go go find that
Regulatory Guide 1.174 to see what they mean.
Hope STPNOC has it right..seems strange exemption was granted finally
after a 4 yr wait..just before major hurricane season hit..and while
the GOM season was beginning.

In otherwords, believe its possible the STPNOC did nothing to
remediate the emergency core cooling systems while they were waiting
those four years??? Shouldnt they have completed the work and not waited
for exemption approval. Wasnt work supposed to be done due to safety
issues? Again,why wait four years..???

What was provided to insure the exemption would be granted? Graft,
corruption and greed comes to mind as an application for an exemption is
just that, an 'application,' not permission to stop work on a safety
requirement.

23 comments:

The ratfarmers are pee'oed the nuclear plant is holding up in the storm. STEPS built to be the last tging standing. Ratfarmers can just lump it. People need electricity during times of crises when other sources are knocked out.

Nuclear plants, despite the bs we hear about how "safe" they are, will be the death of this planet. Fukushima was one. Others will fail also, Murphy's Law. Yet we keep building and licensing more of these potential death factories.

Let's shut down everything we don't understand. What the article (and I'm using that term loosely) failed to mention while spewing doom and gloom prophesies, is the effect that any of the water has on the oberavolity/availability of cooling and safety systems. Please re-write as an informed, balanced article, rather than a nonsense, finger-pointing, hyperbolic piece of crap.

Well I asked STP tech staff about little things, like what MSL flood was their suppression pool heat control systems protected to. And they told me they couldn't release that information as it might be a security concern.

The design basis flood for the plant is 40 MSL. So why expect that they designed to higher than that? But the flood level is expected to be 52 MSL

Doesnt this seem logical to be concerned. No doom and gloom, just shut the darned plant down for 3 days, or go to Mode 3 to allow a quicker restart, whatever, so something rather than drunk fraternity boys doing high fives because "we are running"

The plant is run by true professionals. You would know it if you spent some time doing what they do. They are highly skilled, highly trained, and live under a microscope of scruitiny. Still the job isnt for every technically bent person. Having intimate understanding of this operating environment and culture, they are truely heroic publically minded servants. Give them a break.

No they aren't professional at all. NO PLANNING whatsoever for flooding.The engineer had to scramble around foraging for FOOD for the STP crew because - duh - no one planned on crew getting stuck inside by massive flooding that had DAYS of warning before hitting.

M.A. new article -" In a 2015 NRC document, Raihan Khondker is listed as STP Engineer Sr, Equipment Reliability. According to his linked in page, his experience includes maintenance, and corrosion engineering. The fact that he had to drive through flood waters to bring supplies because engineers were running out of food, according to the article, speaks volumes about the disorganization and lack of planning. ".

You have no clue. You dont know what goes on in the control rooms and emergency ops centers. All you have is popular press, which isnt much.

Wrecked dna? From deminimus rad levels? You obviously are not formally schooled in radiarion sciences and protection. People like you dit around your campfires reminiscing about the 60s and protesting anything that isnt hippie leftist garbage. I bet you never held a real job.

You should thank God those affected by the hurricane have a steady supply of reliable, safe electricity. But you eull never see it that way. Im reminded why the antinuclear position is so illogical and framed from worst case scenarios that never lived up to the hype. Going on 60 yrs now. Surly youve had the chance for oroper knowledge.